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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 28, 2012 23:33:45 GMT 12
Mum got her uncle's service records while doing family research, as he'd served in WWI. I was looking through them one day and helping her decipher what was in them. We were both surprised to find he was attached for some moths to the New Zealand Tunnelling Company. Surprised because as far as we know he was never a miner or an engineer of any sort, and also because unlike the image of the tunnellers I have always had, he was well over six foot tall. I thought they only chose short guys for the role.
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Post by beagle on Oct 29, 2012 16:16:26 GMT 12
I wonder how many went off accidently in the tunnel before they got to their designated point of explosion
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Post by baz62 on Oct 29, 2012 16:46:31 GMT 12
I've recorded it on the DVD Recorder hard drive. I've never transferred anything to disc from the hard drive so I'll have a go and then if successful will be able to convert it to an avi file. Give me a couple of days. Yes I'd be keen to see that. Teresa thought she had recorded it for me but didn't realise she needed to see the little red "R" appear to confirm it was actually recording.
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Post by lumpy on Oct 29, 2012 16:51:27 GMT 12
I wonder how many went off accidently in the tunnel before they got to their designated point of explosion If I recall correctly , its actually the ones that didnt go off that people are most worried about ( even to this day )
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Post by beagle on Oct 29, 2012 16:56:28 GMT 12
yes, well thats the other point. Take it there is not a 100% accurate record on data base anywhere of where unexploded ones are.
"Dad, come look at this funny pumpkin"
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Post by ngatimozart on Oct 29, 2012 20:28:00 GMT 12
Hang about they wouldn't be mines as in land mines. I reckon they'd have used cases or sacks of high explosive. Be easier to handle.
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Post by beagle on Oct 29, 2012 20:51:05 GMT 12
would have been so much easier with 1 JDAM
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 30, 2012 17:12:26 GMT 12
Watch Beneath Hill 60 and you'lll see exactly what form they took, rooms and rooms of tins of explosives.
One reasonable sized underground mine went off randomly in the 1960's right near some farm houses, I recall seeing that some years ago on TV about the huge fright everyone got. I think it was in Belgium, under a sleepy little farm.
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Post by DragonflyDH90 on Oct 30, 2012 19:48:51 GMT 12
Beneath Hill 60 is an amazing movie and quite powerful, well worth a watch.
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Post by JDK on Oct 30, 2012 19:50:39 GMT 12
would have been so much easier with 1 JDAM I think the American experience in Vietnam showed throwing lots of bombs of any combination won't win a war on its own.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 30, 2012 20:49:25 GMT 12
That was also proven at Cassino, where thousands of bombs on a small town made the situation worse rather than easier.
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Post by ngatimozart on Oct 31, 2012 16:43:19 GMT 12
Yeah that was Tiny Freyburgs mistake. Created heaps more cover for the Fallschirmjäger and made it virtually impossible to utilise any advantages his armour might have given him.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 31, 2012 18:25:54 GMT 12
Sadly it is one of those situations that you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. I have talked with a lot of Cassino veterans and have read a fair bit on that campaign. A lot of people don't realise there were two completely seperate bombing raids, the first on the abbey (aka the monestary) on top of Monte Cassino on 15th of February 1944, and the second on the town of Cassino itself at the bottom of the mountain, on the 15th of March 1944. Both were probably necessary, yet neither did much to help the Allied cause.
I agree with the decision to bomb the abbey, and do not consider it a mistake at all, because even if the Germans were not using it as an observation post (which is still debatable) they were certainly dug in around it, and had the Allies pushed the Germans from the town first, the abbey was the obvious place in which they would have retreated to to make a stand at. It would have been impregnable to ground forces and offered perfect defensive cover, so it had to be taken out.
Bombing the town later certainly held up the tanks and slowed down the freedom of movement but that applied to both sides, thus limiting the Germans from counter-attacking with tanks too I guess.
Seeing the town bombed just before they moved into it also gave the kiwis a lot of confidence, as they thought nothing could have survived that bombardment. They may not have gotten so far into the town had the place not been bombed. Who knows?
The decision to bomb was not just Freyberg's either, all his generals were involved, as were his boss Alexander and his predecessor Mark Clark also who advocated it at the time, and after Freyberg was dead, blamed him! Clark was a complete dick.
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Post by beagle on Oct 31, 2012 19:26:41 GMT 12
Beneath Hill 60 is an amazing movie and quite powerful, well worth a watch. The full length movie is on youtube
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